Multivariate discrimination among three Trachurus species from Turkey

Abstract

Trachurus mediterraneus (Steindachner, 1868), T. trachurus (Linnaeus, 1758) and T. picturatus (Bowdich, 1825) are three closely related, morphologically similar horse mackerel species. Here multivariate analyses are used to study interspecific morphometric and menstic variation for these three species. The statistical analysis confirmed that three species were well differentiated. In particular, discriminant analysis revealed that a strong discriminating power of the morphometric variables and three Trachurus species was clearly distinguished due to measurements of preanal length, head length, eye diameter, length of lateral line and numbers of scale in lateral line. © Medwell Journals, 2011.